Oz government expanding data centre footprint

The Australian government is continuing its cloud rollout with a new tender for data centre services.

In line with a policy that's attracted criticism from international providers, the government is sticking with its requirement that Australian government data is kept onshore.

The tender, posted on August 30, is looking for data centres with 1 MVA design capacity and a PUE of 1.9 or better. Existing data centre panel members are eligible to bid.

Mundi Thompson of the Department of Finance and Deregulation has noted that industry feedback during the development of the request for tender led to the department improving provisions for managing confidential information.

In addition, “concerns about the independence of third parties engaged to benchmark facilities … are noted”.

Because the tender is being issued in the caretaker period ahead of the September 7 election, there's the risk that it may be cancelled by an incoming government. However, even if that occurred, it's unlikely that tender teams in the industry will have been burning the midnight oil to work on their responses: the industry briefing for the tender process is scheduled for September 12. ®